Fun Times In The Snow - Part 2

As we made our way to Kansai Airport at 6.30 in the morning, I began to regret the excesses of the night before. I had a sore head, slight nausea and lack of appetite for any of the delicacies that Hokkaido is so famous for. Crab? Sashimi? Butter ramen? I think not.

The plane started its descent into Hokkaido and we began to see the first, spine-tingling glimpses of snow. Meanwhile, we braced ourselves for the cold. I can honestly say that this weekend I wore every single item of clothing that I own. We piled on the jumpers to the point where it became difficult to move. This blogpost was brought to you by the Uniqlo Heat-Tech range.

We suppressed the urge for an immediate snowball fight and made our way to the main festival area in the centre of town. This is a taster of what we saw.

It seems churlish to say this, given that I saw a 4:1 snow-built replica of the Taj Mahal and a castle-sized snow walrus. But I was a little disappointed with this part of the festival. There was a one-way system in place and you walked round past all the attractions, stopping at the various stalls to admire the wide range of Hokkaido foods on display. Every famous Japanese anime or video-game character was represented by a snow statue. We saw Anpanman, Mario, most of One Piece and, of course, Doraemon. Impressive, in a kind of tacky way. But it wasn’t the fairyland of pretty lights that I had imagined. There was a lot of in-your-face corporate sponsorship and a strong sense of the “organized fun” that is so prevalent here. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy myself. There was a 50ft snow walrus for heaven’s sake! And a replica of a great white shark! You could stick your head in its mouth!

Rather oddly, the festival’s smoking areas were predominantly indoors, with portakabins dotted around the site. But at one end I found an open air smoking area that was encased by a huge wall made of ice blocks. Suitably impressed, I made my way in. An attractive lady walked up to me. “Excuse me, are you over 20 years old?” Um. Yes. “Would you like to take a free sample of the new Regal Cigarettes? They have a smooth, relaxing taste with a slow-burning after-effect.” Okay. I was handed a pack of 20. Promoting smoking by giving away free packs of cigarettes in an enclosure made entirely of ice. Nice. Also, I noticed that they had encased a pack in an ice block as part of their attempt to join in with the festivities. Hmm.

We headed out to explore Sapporo’s nightlife. I was still not at 100% after the rigours of the night before. But it was immediately clear that Sapporo is an awesome city. A lot of people say that Japanese cities tend to be very similar-covered malls, overhead cables, box-like architecture dropped seemingly at random onto the landscape etc. Whilst I think there is some truth in this, I also think that most places have something unique about them once you get to know them better. With its grid system and snow-covered landscape, Sapporo is obviously quite unusual. But what I hadn’t realized was just how fun it was. This was clearly a city where people knew how to have a good time. Not only that, but the walls were properly insulated, so when you stepped inside you were actually warm!

We eventually found a restaurant that did Genghis Khan. This is a dish where you fry thin strips of lamb on a half-dome shaped grill (said to resemble Genghis Khan’s helmet) at the table. Lamb is quite unusual in Japan and many of my Japanese friends say they dislike it because of its supposed “strong smell”. But it felt like a real treat to us and we stuffed ourselves silly. More edamame were consumed.

Genghis Khan-note the bowl of edamame skins...

We went for a wander to see the beautiful ice sculptures that were laid out in the centre of the main nightlife district. .I had never seen such intricate ice sculptures before and it felt like the artists were trying to outdo each other with the scale and attention to detail. We also found a bar made entirely of ice where we stopped for some mulled wine. We sat outside, leaning our drinks on the ice counter whilst the snow began to build up around us. It was quite an evening.

Later, on the way home, we finally got round to that snowball fight. I lost.

Fox in the snow!